The whale the town of Cape St. George tried to sell on eBay has floated away.

A combination of high tide, large swells and a westerly wind refloated the 40-foot sperm whale and sent it along the shore to communities east of Cape St. George over the weekend.

When last seen 6 p.m. Saturday, it had cleared the last house in Marche's Point, headed east.

Last week, the town made waves when it listed the beached whale carcass on eBay, a move Cape St. George Mayor Peter Fenwick said at the time was an attempt to put it to use and rid the town of what could eventually be a smelly, rotting health hazard.

Although the dead whale was eventually removed from the online auction, Fenwick said in a prepared statement issed Saturday that with no help coming from the provincial or federal government, the town was preparing to deal with the massive carcass.

“We were debating among ourselves the best way to use the whale and were making plans to bury it on the beach until the flesh decomposed and the skeleton could be salvaged,” Fenwick said.

While admitting “mixed feelings” about the whale drifting away, he said given the costly efforts underway by the Royal Ontario Museum to remove a pair of blue whale carcasses from beaches in Trout River and Rocky Harbour, the development could be the most economical solution for the town.

“Having seen the huge effort of one of the largest museums in Canada to salvage the blue whales north of us, we were not looking forward to funding a similar effort in our town,” he said.